decline vs flourish

decline

verb
  • To run through from first to last; to recite in order as though declining a noun. 

  • To choose not to do something; refuse, forbear, refrain. 

  • To cause to decrease or diminish. 

  • To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall. 

  • To turn or bend aside; to deviate; to stray; to withdraw. 

  • To move downwards, to fall, to drop. 

  • To inflect for case, number, gender, and the like. 

  • To reject a penalty against the opposing team, usually because the result of accepting it would benefit the non-penalized team less than the preceding play. 

  • To become weaker or worse. 

  • To recite all the different declined forms of (a word). 

noun
  • A weakening. 

  • Downward movement, fall. 

  • A reduction or diminution of activity. 

  • The act of declining or refusing something. 

  • A sloping downward, e.g. of a hill or road. 

flourish

verb
  • To use florid language; to indulge in rhetorical figures and lofty expressions. 

  • To thrive or grow well. 

  • To make bold and sweeping, fanciful, or wanton movements, by way of ornament, parade, bravado, etc.; to play with fantastic and irregular motion. 

  • To make bold, sweeping movements with. 

  • To be in a period of greatest influence. 

  • To prosper or fare well. 

  • To adorn with beautiful figures or rhetoric; to ornament with anything showy; to embellish. 

  • To execute an irregular or fanciful strain of music, by way of ornament or prelude. 

  • To make ornamental strokes with the pen; to write graceful, decorative figures. 

  • To develop; to make thrive; to expand. 

noun
  • A ceremonious passage such as a fanfare. 

  • An ornamentation. 

  • A dramatic gesture such as the waving of a flag. 

  • A decorative embellishment on a building. 

How often have the words decline and flourish occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )